The Great Transfer - Of Tights and Kids

Today, I panicked over which tights were the correct ones to buy for my girlfriend, despite having been given explicit written instructions as to what to get. I think I can empathize now with people a few generations above me who go into Game or HMV in order to buy a Wii-S-360; tights and other such female clothing is an entirely alien world to me, one with dark, esoteric terms such as Denier and exacting scientific measurements which laid nude (a little bit of a pun there, as nude is a colour of tights. Feel free to laugh) my inadequacies in such an environment.

Still, I was able to follow the instructions and now feel that I understand a lot more about tights and 'pop-socks', so I'll be able to make another such trip with only half the level of panic. I'd call that a success, myself.

This little stocking sojourn, my delve into Denier, if you will, took place during my lunch break. Whilst heading to Subway to get my lunch, I walked past what could only be described as a stand-up argument. Three people were arguing at length outside of a pub in Bradford town centre, a rough and depressing northern city which has more in common with a melanoma than it does with London, and it was quite a heated argument which ended in a vile case of spitting.

That description should, hopefully, bring to mind at least two males arguing over either the third person, a woman, or something else reasonable and expected. Indeed, in the case of the argument I witnessed, there were two males and a woman arguing. However, the males were considerably younger than you're probably imagining; they were around eight or nine years old, arguing with a woman well into her forties.

It seems that this woman was their aunt and had found them smoking in the town centre. I wasn't privy to this part of the argument, having presumably been a few hundred feet away at the time, but when I walked past she was saying how disgusted she was with them and that she'd be telling their parents. The children, being amazingly 'hard', started to shout and swear at her and basically told her that she didn't dare. This very, very rough woman looked at the children with shame and disdain and walked into the pub.

This only incensed the elder of the two children and he ran after her. He got her attention with a kind, soft voice and then spat in her face and called her a slut. The aunt looked shocked, then angry, and just walked into the pub with prepubescent spit in her ear, affecting a surprising amount of dignity as she did.

What gets me is the sheer gall of these children. When I was young, adults were terrifying monoliths of power who could dole out punishments for even the slightest infraction. I'm pretty certain that, if I'd spat on any member of my family like that, they'd have knocked me on my arse and I would have bloody deserved it.

I almost think that children have too much power at the moment. I can understand the serious need to protect children from abusers, paedophiles and the like, but I think that it's slightly gone overboard. Speak to teachers in schools and many of them will tell you that the children know that they have more power than the leaders of their classrooms, because all it takes is one, made-up story of abuse, emotional, physical or sexual, and they can ruin an entire career, even a life. Now, I understand that every such accusation needs to be investigated in full, but the number of false accusations has risen sharply in the last few years...

I don't claim to be informed enough to have a solution, but surely there are people out there who are? Then again, it's not a particularly saleable political topic; some of you have done such a shit job with your kids that now we need to use your tax money to find ways to correct it.

An unlikely election winning manifesto, to be sure. What's scary is that only a Tory government would even try such a thing and I'd support it. I lean to the right sometimes.

Now that's really scary...